Random thoughts from a Brit in the North West. Sometimes serious, sometimes not. Quite often curmudgeonly.

Saturday, November 03, 2012

My failure to post a blog last night was not unconnected with my return to the house around 4am. Richard and the lovely Blanca went one better and got through to after 6. Just as they had done the previous evening, despite one of them needing to report in for work at 8am. As I've said more than once, the Spanish horario can be a tad crazy,

Anyway, I did manage to take some fotos yesterday and here they are:-

The church of San Francisco, which lacks a steeple or tower as these would interfere with the operation of a naval observatory, looking out to sea from the city to the left of this facade.

One of the glass-houses owned by the bar behind it.

A car parked on the zebra crossing, on the other side of the street.

I got to musing what the driver would say if I remonstrated with him/her:-

You do realise you are blocking sight lines and that you could be the cause of an accident?

I don't think there's a chance in hell of that happening?

Yes, but what if it did happen and someone was injured?

Well, I'd be very, very sorry and I would apologise as if I really meant it.

A building belonging to the Port Authority

A recent addition to the cityscape of Ferrol, near the port. Richard tells me there used to be a decent restaurant in this building, which is a seafarers' hotel. Nonetheless, I would dynamite it and flay the architect alive.

And now a few snaps taken in the old quarter, or Ferrol Vella. Which, it has to be said, is not a patch on Pontevedra's. But at least it's not built on the (Military imposed) grid pattern of the new quarter so disliked by my friend Martin in his Galicia Guide.

Ferrol, of course, is the start of the English Way to Santiago, El Camino Inglés. Which starts at the spot at which George Borrow arrived after a boat journey from La Coruña. Naturally, the route passes through the old quarter, which wasn't considered old when Borrow walked through it en route to the San Francisco church above. At the end of this street, San Francisco St.

And now some of the better features of the old quarter:-

San Francisco St., the continuation of the English Way.

At the end of San Francisco Street, where the new quarter begins.

A convent close to San Francisco church.

Richard believes it is a silent order. The bars on the windows suggest that, should things get to be too much, the nuns may be able to shout out but not to jump out,

This chap was a slave trader who saw the light, gave up the business and became a philanthropist. His statue stands in a pretty little square named after him, Plaza Amboage.

The amusingly named Bla Bla Café, just off the square.

A place which has just been restored.

And the house next door, which hasn't.

That's (almost) it. I leave you with a conundrum from a sign in an old fort that Richard and I visited. A defensive feature which - along with another fort on the other side of the straits - enabled the Ferrolese to fend off an attack from the British in 1800. Usually referred to as the Battle of Brión.